The Watch - The End of the Year Mailbag

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Chris and Andy round out 2022 by answering some mailbag questions. They talk about their ideal TV-watching environment (1:00), their favorite television moments from the year (26:33), and how shows like 'Andor' changed what's possible for comic book TV (32:27). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasisis? may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us,

the intersection of interests that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.org. and joining me on the other line. Wait a minute, Mr. Postman. It's Andy Greenwald! Do you guys have the ringer.org? I do. That's where I do a lot of my nonprofit work. Andy, it's fantastic to see you.

I just saw you. We just recorded an episode, but we had to do it to them. We had to come back with just right under the wire 2022 episode Mailbag time. Thank you to everybody who responded on two of the most revered social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook with their questions. I can't wait to spend even more time perusing those two hallowed halls of discourse next year.

Here's hoping they both make it. Have you prepared your why I'm leaving Twitter essay yet? I've been checking for it. No, I think I'm just going to announce I'm quitting every day, but then like six hours later be like, Derek Rose has to make that shot. Oh, so like everyone else? Yeah. Cool.

So what we have here is a bunch of questions. from dedicated watch listeners, and we really appreciate the engagement. I'm just busting chops, but it is always really fun to see what people really think of Andy in our Facebook group. Yeah, that's good to know too.

What I appreciate is that people don't hold back. Yeah, no. I think everybody would admit it comes from a place of love. I know that this podcast comes from a place of love. Should we just dive into our first question? Yeah, I just wanted to set the stage by saying it's interesting.

I'm curious if there's a difference because we're already warm. Like, we've already done a podcast. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I would, Kaya might be able to tell us better than, than we would be able to see ourselves. You know, sometimes she could be kind of like the narrator for our Fleischman is in trouble, you know? But like, is it?

Andy and Chris found themselves in their mid-40s having podcasted for over an hour about Taylor Sheridan. I would watch that show. When they started reading questions from their listeners who often wonder whether or not Andy is ethically compromised. Also true. I wonder that often. But I guess my question is like, do you think, and we'll be,

Kaya will be the judge of this, like, is podcasting like sports where like we get warmed up and then you go into the game? Or are we like on Haldale-Maria, you know, like in extra time, you know? Just fucking sobbing. Yeah. Not just sobbing, but clearly gassed and too old for this. Sean Fennessey loves a long pod. And he is teaching me the way of the force in that regard.

I find myself now getting more and more excited the longer podcasts go. I didn't always feel that way. I used to have an internal alarm clock that would go off in 45 minutes and be like, well, that's it, even if you were in midpoint. I think people appreciated that. That was a charity. But what about you? I feel like your time is tight, but when you're in front of the microphone, you give everything.

I black out. I love it. This could go on forever. You're Mboppe with three guys guarding you on the wing, you know? Just literally saying, I've got this. willing my way to succeed. The first question in our 2022 year-end mailbag is this, Andy, from Matthew, with an obvious glut of TV clogging up the conversation,

would you, I assume both of us, rather one show be a consensus hit that everyone agrees is an exemplar of the form, a.k.a. The Wire and Mad Men, interesting that Matthew refers to these as hits. Or a huge amount of shows allowing for more gems like the bear to emerge, even if not everyone watches them. I thought this is a great question for Matthew, but also kind of portrayed

the rose tinted glasses with which we look back on 2012 or 2010 say in the TV from that era because those shows were not hits.

Mad Men was I think hotly anticipated and always talked about and was clearly an awards favorite but the wire was a season to season

renewal for a couple of years there and famously was never rewarded with any Emmy statues for its work. this is a cool question though because I think

I kind of feel like the closest thing we have to what Matthew's talking about right now is Succession. And while I would never say Succession is in its twilight, I do think it's in its late innings. We could be approaching the seventh inning stretch of Succession. So it's weird. I think when Succession comes back next season,

it will be this amazing, awesome moment and we're all talking about and watching it week to week. But the idea, I think that it's rounding second, if not rounding third, in terms of the story, it's going to tell. And this is the story, not the kid that Roman offered a million dollars to in the pilot. No. But what do you think of Matthew's premise here, that you can either have one show that's like a water cooler show that everybody wants to talk about, everybody's watching. And I think by his implication

is everybody's appreciating versus dozens and dozens of shows and you walk up to somebody and you say, hey, have you watched the bear on there? Like, what the fuck are you talking about? And they say, I loved you in the rehearsal. And then I walk away. It is a good question, and I think the answer is... See? What's my reading on the gun for that one? Triple digits? I think the question is different as a fan and viewer or as a podcaster.

I think as a fan of the medium and of a variety of shows and styles of shows, I think it's an easy... I want a lot of good things, even if it costs me the opportunity to talk to people at the water cooler or at the office I don't go to. That said, still very fresh in my mind is how incredibly fun it was talking about White Lotus the last few weeks. Primarily with you, my guy, my high-end guy, off the coast of Sicily. But that was representative also of just like socially, just many, many people in my life. And then also that White Lotus this season crossed over into the like at the dentist office.

people were talking about it. Yeah. And that was really fun. So I love that opportunity, but I do think I particularly love it because of what it means for us and what we can do week to week. I love the idea of the water cooler show, but it is very funny that for most of the time that we've been doing this podcast, we've been basing the water cooler around the sleepy Los Angeles, sleepy town of Los Angeles, where it's not that uncommon to hear people talking

about TV shows at dinner. And some of them are Mike White or whatever. Yeah. you were happy to be dining next to. I think, so with this question in mind, I did call up what I think was my first top 10 list as the TV critic at Granlin, which was 2012. And you were saying we were the glory years of that. And it's interesting. Well, so I'll run through it with you. So what do you want? 10 to 1 or 1 to 10? 10 to 1. I'll do 10 to 1. That's how you build anticipation. Insanely, number 10 was a NBC sitcom called Bent, starring Amanda Pete.

that lasted, I think, six episodes. So that was, you know, it was all, got to be me, always me. Nine was girls. Eight was Sherlock. Seven was New Girl. Uh-huh. Six was Parks and Rec. You love comedies.

I love network comedies. Get ready. There's more on the list. Five was Breaking Bad. Four was 30 Rock. Three was Homeland. Two was happy endings. Another broadcast sitcom.

Wow. The number one was Mad Men. So of this list, how many are half-hour comedies? One, two, three, three, four, five, and if you count girls, six. And looking at that list, part of me is like, oh my God, Mad Men and 30 Rock at the same time. What a great time that was to be alive. But also, what I think of when I look at that list now is, boy, did I like a lot of comedies.

But also, boy, was it just easier to make a list. Yeah. There was just a lot less. And of those shows, it feels a little consensusy. Like, I'm sure there were lists that didn't have 30 Rock and Parks and Rec. certainly no one else in the universe had bent, but like, it's almost quaint that these were just sort of easy softballs over the middle of the plate because all these shows are good and people still think of them as good. And I think it's much more fun to have what we have now. Just when you're

thinking of it as a viewer. I think for our purposes, it's the former. I think it would be cool to have 10, six to 10 big shows that everybody like talking about that we talked about. But I do remember that, you know, when early Thrones was happening, when Mad Men was happening, I think that the, I got, I don't know how to put this, the tone of the discourse was a little bit more enthusiastic because I think we were all a little bit like, God damn, I didn't know TV could be this good. How fun. How great. Yeah. So I don't think it was as much like concern trolling and kind of like the thing that everybody likes is actually not that good. There was a fair amount of that too. But it was rare to come across somebody who was both watching Mad Men and didn't like it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that maybe the things that have changed aren't television so much as us, the viewer. Well, but television has also changed dramatically so that 2020's version of Bent, the sort of thing that I want to put on my list because it spoke to me and I want to make the case for it, is the English, which would have been the best thing of 2012, because it would have been absolutely jaw-dropping what the fuck we're doing this now and revolutionary. Yeah. You know, like the era of just TV doing stuff like that.

God damn, is that the woman from Devil Wears Prada? I mean, yeah. By the way, your Edge of Tomorrow erasure saying, like, this is her best performance. I don't know. I mean, the English is her best performance. Better than Edge of Tomorrow. That's a great movie. Yeah, she does the same thing over and over again, Edge of Tomorrow.

It's really cool, but... That's what the movie's about. She wears a meck suit. Like, this is pretty awesome. Oh, don't school me on what Edge of Tomorrow is about. I know what it's about. I just mean that that revolution, which probably kind of you could trace to true detective season one, regardless of my own personal feelings about it, just like, hey, clear out something big

and crazy is about to happen in terms of production values and ambition and scope. Like that really has changed things. I would just say that one of the fun things, or sometimes I get the feeling when I'm watching a TV show nowadays, that is somewhat similar to the one that you would have maybe like when you were in college and you were listening to a band, nobody else was listening to. Or you're like, I feel like I found this thing. Oh, yeah. Which is not, which is kind of why we found ourselves in the dire economic situation that a lot

of the streamers are in is because not enough people were watching these shows. But there was, there is a thrill that comes along with turning on zero zero zero zero on a lark and be like, what the fuck is this? I cannot believe this got made. So that's, that's the flip side of it. And it's soundtrack by Maguire band that we definitely both thought we invented in 1996. next question comes from Kurt. Are there reasons to be hopeful about the business of streaming television?

I need to pick me up after Thursday. Kurt is referring to our episode from, I guess, by this point, two weeks ago when we were just kind of like going through all the WBD cancellations and HBO max show removals plus the insanity at DCU. But do you have any reasons to be hopeful about the streaming business? We just did them on our last podcast that is separated from this one by a week plus. I think that if you are a fan of television, you have a lot to be hopeful for and a lot to be excited about looking at 2023. There's a lot of great stuff happening. A lot of great stuff is being made. A lot of great stuff has been made and it's just being posted and marketed and whatever and we'll be out soon. The effects, the chilling effects that we were talking about, you know,

there's a long runway for a lot of that. Not all of it. I mean, there are things that you feel in the short term when there's like surprise cancellations like we were saying with season two minks or shows that you have loved or we're saving, getting pulled from your platforms. These are worrying trends, but the wolf is still at the door. The wolf is not sitting on the couch next to you being like, nope, that you don't have that service anymore. So I think 2023 is going to have a lot of great stuff. And we went through a lot of it on that last podcast. I think as a viewer, you'll probably have more than enough to watch. I think as a consumer, there might be some rapids ahead where maybe some services that you have a personal attachment to,

like say, shutter or something like that without any knowledge of what's going to happen to shutter. But AMC is going through some real... Are you saying shutter or may shutter? Well, I just... Is that the Hollywood Reporter headline? I think that there will probably be some contraction in the business.

Or, you know, when you're like, wait, what's this show that is on Spectrum TV, you know, like there's just sort of this speculative content generation going on by companies that maybe didn't really have any skin in the game. I think that might stop. I think we might see fewer shows in 24 than we got in say 22 or 23. And perhaps you will have to make some decisions like most of us about how much money we really want to spend on all of these services if they've only got like one or two shows you're watching to avoid it turning into the cable feeling. Michael asks,

what is one previous opinion or take of yours that you wish could disappear into the ether as if it was an HBO Mac show. Great, great question phrasing. I've got one here. Okay. This isn't an opinion, like, this isn't like a show I was wrong about because I've since watched it and now realize that I was wrong or my critical opinion one way or the other was wrong.

But I feel like I let the Chernobyl thing turn into a bit that then became ideology. I feel the same way. That was going to be my answer. And so I kind of wish I could go back in time and just have been like, I'm into Chernobyl because I was watching the Oppenheimer trailer and I was like, this is fucking interesting. And I was like, maybe I should have watched Chernobyl.

You know, not the exact same thing. But the Oppenheimer discourse is like, your boy Chris Nolan created a nuclear reaction and filmed it on an analog like IMAX camera for your pleasure, you Cretans. I don't think that Chernobyl did that, thankfully. Right?

We don't know. We didn't see it. We don't know. I appreciate your candor and your humility. I've never made a mistake about anything. So, no. You're not going to revise any opinions. Are you serious?

I've never been wrong. No, all my opinions are good. It's not that you're, whether you're wrong or not. It's whether or not you've since decided that you were like, oh, I feel differently about this. My honest reaction was, I wish that we had, the thing that's the most annoying about myself in the last 10 years of covering TV in whatever fashion is that kind of arbitrary reasons for not engaging with some stuff. And at the beginning,

it was purely like triage. Like I remember I had a very arbitrary but actually like self-sustaining rule that if it was an established show that had run multiple seasons when I took over the essentially the critics job in 2011, I just so sorry, I don't have time to go backwards. There's so much as if there was a lot then. But it felt like. there was a lot there. And I was much more of a completist when I was writing pieces about it. So like Sons of Anarchy, which I don't think is a show I ever would have liked. But I easily could say, so sorry, it's just, it falls out. So. Well, you're such an avid motorcyclist that it's kind of a busman's holiday to watch. Passion. A show about it, you know? But also then

that became kind of a self-fulfilling thing where I'm like, well, this strikes me as two X, so therefore I don't need to, or I don't have the time because I don't enjoy Y. And I I definitely have let that get the better of me. And just thus missed things. Yeah, but I think catch up bytes is hard, man. Like, I mean, you felt that with for all mankind, a show that you were like, oh, I'll, I'll jump in with two feet here. And you're like, God damn, that's 30 hours.

It's so, yeah, but those are some of the longest hours of my life in the first season. And I enjoyed them. But I've never had an experience like I had with that show where I was like, can't wait to tell Chris, I finish five episodes. Oh, I know. You always get ahead of your skis on those. Yeah. No, but I think that that kind of metastasized that thinking.

And so there are a lot of things that I just sort of put in a box where it didn't belong and then didn't engage with. And you're right that everyone does that, but not everyone has a twice-weekly television and pop culture podcast. So there are things that I wished I had more time to engage with in good faith clean, like from the beginning. Right. And Chernobyl is an example of something that there was a lot of stuff that year because of being in production that I just didn't have time to engage with. But clearly it is a worthwhile show that continues to be name-checked and referenced. and, you know, it feels silly not to have engaged with it. And it's coming up again because Craig Mazin's doing, because he's doing Last of Us.

But also, what's his name? Luke Hall, who we've been praising, I think that's his name, we've been praising as the genius production designer of Andor. They hired him because of his work on Chernobyl. Like, this is an important series in that regard, too, in terms of people's careers taking off in different directions. That's the one I was thinking of.

There's some other, like, bigger ticket ones, but I don't, like, I didn't like true detective season one. I just didn't. I still aren't. It's not like you've ever been like, by the way, that's, that's, I'm just fucking around. Like, I thought that was really cool. Yeah, but there's, there's, I don't think there's, yeah, I don't think there's any things that maybe I was against the grain on that I think I was necessarily, I clearly, I clearly was

wrong culturally, or in terms of the significance or impact on the industry, but just to my personal taste, just weren't for me. This is a great question from Tony. I kind of love these, these sorts of chats. Tony asks, how do you to actually consume shows? I'm talking about the nuts and bolts here. Alone on a couch, snacks, LCD TV projector in the evening. Do you limit yourself to how much media you consume in one day?

This might seem a little mundane, but I find myself thinking about it when I realize how much content you actually absorb. Wow. I wish I had a better answer. I don't have a particularly good setup. I'm hoping to change that setup. So for my purposes, obviously sports is also in the mix for me for professional purposes, soccer and basketball mostly. but I've really started to notice now how much stuff I'm watching purely for work purposes, right?

Like, I think in a natural, normal everyday circumstance, I would probably choose to watch like an hour or two of television on any given night. Like, that seems like a show and maybe like a little digestief afterwards. Like, I would love to watch a drama. Like, the best fucking night is the HBO Sunday night, there's an hour-long drama, and then Veep was on. That was like, that's how daddy like to end his week.

But now, because of the sheer volume of stuff, and then you get screeners and some screeners are only available through an application or a site that's on your laptop. Or sometimes you just have to watch Yellowstone at 10.30 a.m. And whatever the case may be, I think that I probably watch way more stuff in non-ideal circumstances than anybody really should. I'm sure that's the case for anybody who does this professionally.

my preferred like setup is the big screen television at 9 p.m. and with my phone in the other room. And if I feel myself wanting to go get my phone, usually that says something about the show or the mood that I'm in and maybe I should give it a shot at a different time. I just often don't have that kind of that kind of time. But I have started to feel a little bit more like, oh man, I knocked out like an episode of something and then I watched something for rewatchables. And then my wife is like, do you want to watch something tonight and I'm like, shit. Like, I'm kind of fried and I'm just going to play solitary while sex lives of college girls is on. I totally relate to and connect with this. I think that one of the great pleasures for most people in the world is watching some of this

stuff with people, whether it's friends or significant others. And there are certain shows, not necessarily the ones you might expect, but certain shows that just lock into that. And it's an elevated and better experience because of it. And that was like when me and Briar and Tyree Henry all went over to Sam's every week to watch House of the Dragon. Did he ever let on how Brian Tyree, Henry and I watched season four of Mr. Robot and podcasted about it and then destroyed

the tapes? Did that ever come up? Do you like having, do you have a big screen, computer screen, like orthodoxy? I don't. But I also haven't really felt free to have an opinion because, to your point,

like Andor, our favorite thing, there were, you know, to maybe to accommodate Tony's schedule when he was able to talk to us this season, we would get screeners and on a very special encrypted website. And so I watched the majority of the season of Andor on my laptop, which is a bummer. There were a couple weeks when we didn't have him on and we weren't recording until later in the week or whatever. And then I could watch those episodes on TV. And that was more pleasurable. But I've kind of had to stop. I don't feel like I've had the luxury of saying, ah, this is an aesthetic experience I'd like to sink into because. of the nature of recording, the nature of the shows that we talk about. White Lotus was an exception because it didn't, they didn't, they did give us screeners,

but we never got ahead of it, right? So I watched that entire season on TV and I enjoyed it more because of it. That's the best. That's the best. Unless somebody texts you and is like, oh my God, you know, this happened. But for the most part, it's the best, you know?

Do you think, not to keep talking about it? When you text me and you're like, oh my God, really in trouble. Did you freak out? I was like, what happened now? So did Sam spoil White Lotus for us? What do you mean?

Well, there was a moment on the Sunday that it aired, and I didn't watch it on the East Coast Feed. Yeah. When he texted both of us a picture of Jennifer Coolidge. Oh, I had watched the West Coast Feed, so I knew. But he didn't send like a picture that gave anything away, but he sent that picture. So I've been litigating this in my mind.

He, I think, just assumed that as passionate, lovers of the medium and professional podcasters, we were watching the West Coast feed, the East Coast feed, the 9th, 6 p.m. in the L.A. I think he was saying that he's justified because season three will be an entire season without the show's lead character,

which means they'll love it. Anyway, let's revisit this question next year because actually a goal of mine, not just made up here on the spot, is to have a better viewing plan and system, better screen, better sound, and maybe I'll like more things. We'll see.

Okay, so here's another question. This one comes from, from Norm. I'll just knock this one out really quick. Norm, thank you for writing in. We know Andy makes incursions outside the ringer verse for his podcast listening. Andy is an avowed Mark Marin fan and an NPR Fresh Air fan.

But most of his time is spent listening to Bill Simmons podcast. Don't let it, don't get a twisted. Less clear with Chris, with Bill Simmons's permission, of course. Can you list your top three non-ringer podcasts that you keep going back to? this is just an opportunity to plug three of my favorites.

It's No Laying Up, which is a golf and I guess Life podcast. It's No Laying Up and the Trap Draw, but you can find them both over at No Laying Up. And I love those guys and I love their pods. Axe to Grind, which is about hardcore. And if you listen to Hardcore Punk, you should definitely be listening to Axe to Grind. And Greatest of All Talk, which is my big fave, Nodringer MBA pod, which is from our buddy, Andrew Sharp and Ben Gulliver. How do you find the time?

Drive around a lot. drive around a lot and I don't have any children in my car to be like I don't want to listen to Andrew Sharp talk about whether Steph Curry's legacy

is damaged by this Can I trade lives? Yes. I mean, I really like Taylor Swift and I like her new album and I think

anti-hero is one of the best songs of the year. I put it on my playlist. Check it out on Spotify. But really they only want to listen to that song.

Your kids. And so the other day I was like, oh, my God, okay, well, look, there's another version of it. The guy who co-wrote the song with her and produced it, there's another version with her in bleachers, and like, Jack has a verse on the song. And you would think that I put on a G.G. Allen track. They reacted so violently. My older daughter, who I think could better understand the concept of a remix, not that we've talked about this per se, but I feel like she could get it.

You haven't had that chat yet? We haven't sat down and had that chat. who invented the remix? She couldn't understand it. There was a man named the Thin White Duke. She was like, why would they ruin the song? Why is it ruined now? And I was like, no, this is just a different version. It's actually kind of cool.

It kind of sounds like a magnetic field song, which is a whole other story, but I really like it and say and saying different words. She covered her ears until it was over. So I can't imagine what she'd do with the hardcore podcast, but it wouldn't be good. Any other non-ringer pods you want to plug besides WTF and fresh air? The degree to which I am a basic is just I don't have words. I listen. It's not just that, Chris, like I, you know how on ringer podcasts, people like Ben Solac and

Stephen Ruiz are like, here's what makes a good quarterback and like a pocket quarterback like does the checkdowns and does everything correctly? That's me getting into my car. I'm like, is there a new episode of the Bill Simmons podcast? No, check down. Philly Special up yet? No, check down. What's on fresh air today? I don't care about politics anymore. It's the off cycle. What's on Marin? Have never heard of this person. I guess I'll sit in silence. I've done all my reads and I take the sack. Do you know what I mean? I don't have anything else.

Sometimes Chang, I'll listen to Chang, but that's a ringer podcast. That's a that's, then I'm done. I don't have a creative offense. You don't do like true crime while you're sitting around and try to solve some murders. Come on. is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night

you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably, so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime

to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. terms apply. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant.

18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This is one that I gave a lot of thought to, and then was sort of, I kind of was like, I got to my list of my response to this question, and I was like, I'm just a parody of myself, but I'm going to do it anyway. Could you do top three scenes or episodes of the year?

I did scenes. I didn't get to this one on the preps. I've not prepped for this. I'm going to give you my three. Okay. And I've made this joke recently on a podcast, so I feel like I'm plagiarizing myself. but this is truly me at my most Floyd Gondoli-esque

where I'm just like, I just like butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth. And my top three scenes of this season were Luther's speech in Andor. Yeah, the tracks. In episode 10. Sally melting down in the elevator in Barry. Oh, that's good.

And Jesse's first buy at the end of episode two, episode three, episode two of season two of industry. When Jesse goes to Harper and it's like that 10 minute, The Michael Man scene. Rishi is like, this is cuck behavior. And then they go out and Jesse is like, I wanted it at 44 and Rishi's like 45.

And Harper's like fucking crying and she's got to get Yaz on the PA. I wish you guys could see how happy Chris is talking about the scene. That fucking show is so good. I know that it seems like we're in the pocket of Big Mickey and Conrad. But that really did check every box I have in my soul. I'm not a complicated guy. I like cinema. It's an unimpeachable list.

I think the one or episode of the bear was also, I mean, that's maybe cheating. It's an entire episode. You can take episodes. I do scenes. Do you have episodes? This guy, Jesse, he also asked for, sorry, Jay, he also asked for top episodes. So, do you have any? I don't, well, I didn't watch any television this year. This has all been a block. The first episode of 1923. The last episode of 1883. Just rich. Rich in my mind. The second episode of 1899. I like historical fiction. Sam Mendez's is 1927. Keep going. I'm not prepared to do this to do this exercise,

but I did on the year end pod, shout out the season finale of Severance, which I thought was just expert, and an example of a show that wasn't in my top 10 for reasons discussed, but like that episode was just relentless, undeniable, just so impressive and set up, set up a second season.

There are moments in the season of the bear that maybe meant more to me or hit me in a certain way. But that episode is such, the one or episode is just jaw-dropping. It's a jaw-dropping episode. I have one that's from Netano that's a little bit more complex, but I would be curious to get your response to this. How come none of your scenes of the year were scenes that reinforce the concept

that the battleground is now the womb? I think if you think about it, all of my scenes say the battleground is the womb. Wow. I also really like that. the first bridge scene in House of the Dragon, if we're talking more scenes. The question is, thank you for another great year of culture talk and kvetching about low lighting and restaurants. Thank you. Natalia, that's really nice. I loved your conversation about the

broken state of streaming. This is from two weeks ago. And this is where I'm going to direct it to you, Andy. Have you heard or thought about models that might address the various problems facing creatives and consumers? So any not good news on the horizon in terms of the shows? We've talked about that our most anticipated shows of 2023, and you mentioned the sort of great bounty that we're about to get in the next 12 months. But have you heard about anything, be it through the labor negotiations

between the writers and the Hollywood, which I'm sure are going great? Or just about... I think the first thing I thought about here was Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's company, where they're talking about essentially making profit participation standard for everybody not only above the line,

but below the line on productions and changing the sort of economic paradigm around how you make something. Have you heard about anything or thought about anything that gives you hope in that regard? No. I mean, my thought did turn to that Ben and Matt idea

because it just has the words profit participation, which I think is crucial. But it's also hard to get exercised in terms of the forward-facing aspect of this podcast. It'd get exercised about like the problems facing writers and creatives at this moment. Everybody's feeling it. And, you know, it also can be hard to communicate because when you talk about things not

being fair for screenwriters, it is decidedly not the way it's unfair for gig economy workers or coal miners. But it is essentially, there's also these coal miners is a bit of a joke. But like, gig economy is what everything is now to a degree. And so there are some things that hopefully are on the table in negotiations for the new contract for writers, which isn't happening until, you know, I think it won't happen probably until May, and then it might be an extension. So who knows when things would actually hit, strike would actually happen if it came to that.

But some of the things that need to be covered are things that protect people on all ends of it, whether it's something called span protection, which some studios do and some don't. This is super inside baseball, and I probably butcher it a little bit. But basically, you know, as everybody knows, TV used to mean 22 episodes a year, and you got, if you got paid to write or produce 22 episodes per year, and that was the arbiter of how much you got paid, that worked out. You were paid really well because there was a lot of them. In today's climate, and this has led to higher quality shows, no one's arguing against this, but you could make a deal to do eight episodes of a show. And if you created the show,

between writing it, selling it, producing it, posting it, doing promo and press for it, that could be two years of your life. That's two years for eight episodes worth, unless you're under a larger overall deal. You're still being paid very well in the larger scheme of things, but that doesn't seem entirely fair. And if you were a junior writer-type person,

instead of having one gig for the year, you have to potentially string together two, three, four jobs in the year. And that is incredibly stressful. It's incredibly hard. It's incredibly unpredictable, especially for lower-level writers. It also, and I've been hearing this more recently,

does have a really fucked up effect on the future, because if you have a six-episode show and you have a writer's room for it, by the time you're breaking episode three, everyone in the room is just texting with their agents being like, what else can I do? What have you got for me next?

Also, those shows then generally don't have the budget for the writers to be the writer-producers that they're supposed to be and go on set and learn how to do that so that they can become showrunners, etc., etc. So there's just these kind of like deep, probably uninteresting to the layman problems that are just baked in,

and unless we start addressing those and lifting up the whole system and making people feel more engaged in it. And this is a version of the complaints without talking about the fact that residuals don't exist anymore and all these other income streams to make people feel involved

and hopeful and also potentially see the, reap the long-term benefits of their labor, blah, blah, blah. I'm not that hopeful about any one of these things. I'm hopeful that by talking about them on this podcast and then, you know, in labor movements and stuff in the new year, people can hear about it

because that will lift the floor in a way that would be beneficial to the industry, as opposed to just being beneficial to the industry with Affleck and Damon. How did I do? Because I knew I was getting a little boring. So I thought if I threw in a little pun at the end.

I feel bummed out. I wish I had something more hopeful to say. I do think that the answer to the previous stuff stand. I think that's really realistic. I think that's good. And I think it's pretty valuable to be able to get your perspective from sort of the writer, creator side of things.

I mean, as a consumer of it, you know, I often get a little bit distracted by my youth. and growing up and being like, Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi by maxing out his credit card. And like, look, like, sometimes you just got to do it and not always expect a huge payday. I just think TV's different than movies in that regard.

The idea of there being a thriving, boundary-pushing independent television community or world is kind of, that's never existed. There's never really been, there have been networks that have been rebel networks or the fifth of Fox starting and, HBO programming the way it does. But ultimately, to get the kind of money and resources you need to do an episodic television series, no matter whether it's limited or ongoing, you need the

backing of a corporation. You can't just be like, me and my boys are going to go out and make a cool iPhone show. Nobody does that. But you also need to invest in an industry that will self-perpetuate, and part of that is something I just alluded to, which is you need to raise people right, and bring them in and teach people how to do the jobs. Yeah, exactly. These are just seemingly small things, but like, oh, where can we slash a budget? Well, we'll slash the budget by only, we'll pay for the writer's room, but then the writer's term of service is done when we go into production.

Writers, you know, people talk about this. So what does it mean to be supervising producer, co-producer? Those are writer producers. Like, that's part of the job. But in very, very few places pay for writer producers to stay on the show, getting paid and come on set and produce their episodes. And so you have a generation of writers. Oh, no, I was going to say, I'll never forget when you kind of like, as you used your show went forward, as Breyer Patch went forward, and as you got out of the, I'm writing these scripts mode and into the I'm making the show mode, you were like, oh my God, I set all this stuff at night.

That doesn't just mean like 8 p.m. at a cool bar. It's like three in the morning in a deserted part of Albuquerque. Yeah. So many mistakes. And none of them having to do with the lovely city of Albuquerque. but then learning a completely different part of the job, but then making sure that people can come do it too, because then when they make their shows,

they'll know better and they'll continue how to do it. And you won't have situations, not just where people are unprepared, but then people get absolutely railroaded in Shanghai or whatever word you want to use, where it's like, oh, we'll bring in a senior person to help run it with you slash shiv you in the back because you don't actually know how to do it yet.

Right. Or we don't trust you to do it. So we're paying three people and we're losing money this way. It's just like the cost cutting. it's an interesting place to end up in the conversation because all the little instances of cost cutting and profit preserving or whatever you want to call it, they do add up to structural problems

that eventually will be on your screen. And to some degree they have. I mean, things that have fallen apart in production and then maybe get papered over and we don't talk about it. But like some of this stuff has happened on your screens. None of this is, you know, the sky is falling like Secovia onto the industry in 2023, but a lot of these things

are coming home to Roost, I think, these sort of structural things, and I don't know how to fix them all. And by the way, one labor disruption should it even come to that isn't going to fix them all either. Right. All right, I'm going to fold these two questions

to wrap up, Andy, together, okay? Sean asked, what other franchise is ripe for an Andor style, grown-up, glow-up on TV? And then John asks, hey, guys, how much does your coverage of MCU and Star Wars come from it just being mass culture

and how much from your own interest. So I think that my answer to this question would have been different before Andor and after Andor. Right. You know, like Andor definitely rekindled. I think even despite maybe Tony Gilroy not even really caring that much about Star Wars, like it showed me there was this other side of Star Wars. It's made me excited for Leslie Headland's Ackleite series. I'm excited for Mandalorian coming back. I'm very curious to see where Star Wars goes for a variety of reasons. But I think that before Andor and when we were in the Obi-Wan days and when we're in Book of Boba-Fet days and there's no movies on the horizon. I was kind of like maybe this is sort of petering out.

You know, I'm sure that they'll keep pumping this out. I'm sure they'll make a Darth series. I'm sure there will be a Yoda series. I'm sure they'll find another Han Solo, Young Solo to do. And they'll keep trying stuff on. But Andor really, I think, changed the game for me. What do you think about? I guess this is a sort of middle question in between the two.

Yeah, I think the way to bridge it is. What Andor did wasn't just make the best show of the year and show it's possible within big budget, big IP franchise entertainment. But I think it absolutely helped redefine, reframe what Star Wars is and what makes it special. And I think one of the things that made it special is that it is both a physical place. It's not just a power. It's not just having powers or being a mutant or being a Jedi. It's a galaxy with a lot of things going on in it. But also, we've only ever looked at the very top of the iceberg.

We've only ever told stories that are from the very top of it, you know, the people, the magic boy with the powers and the droids and the people who matter and who are legendary and loom large. And there's so much more beneath the surface that you can talk about and explore. And suddenly the whole thing is wide open. And you could tell all kinds of stories in it. And that's just so thrilling. I think that I would love to see the MCU be able to do something like that.

and maybe pushed even a little more in the direction of the Winter Soldier was not Parallax View. What would the Parallax View actually look like here? Jessica Jones came a little bit close. I don't know if Big MCU even acknowledges that show anymore, although I guess Daredevil's coming back in, so maybe it is all canon. But briefly, it was like, oh, well, it could be this too.

I think what's gotten muddy is that the appeal of the MCU project, right, is that it is all the biggest things that have ever happened on the biggest stages with the biggest, most powerful people, and it's all connected. on that level. So how do you then dial it all the way down to tell a story about people? And the problem then is,

if you do that, isn't it just the good fight? No disrespect for the good fight, but then it's Earth. Because there's certainly no planet that we've seen in the larger Guardians of the Galaxyverse aspect of the MCU,

where I'm like, oh, that would be so interesting. They're lawyers, but they're blue. You know, there's nothing particularly compelling about any of those worlds yet. It's just sort of Earth tweaked. So I loved the question because I love the idea of other franchises being open to this possibility. But then the list gets real short, real fast.

Right. Because Lord of the Rings, I don't really want to see a show about blacksmiths. Maybe it would be amazing, but I can't imagine that that would be as interesting to me. The only remaining candidate, I think, is Star Trek. But Star Trek has always kind of done a little bit of this. It's always been a little bit more grounded and about the people and you go into the planets and things like that. And I guess the other problem with Star Trek is that it's essentially utopian.

And I feel like that's something they've been bending against for the last few years. I'm sure Star Trek fans right now are screaming at us that they've been doing these kinds of glow ups like for a couple of years now with various Paramount shows. I agree with that. But I would also say that, and we have never talked about it on the pod because I didn't get far into it. But I did check out Strange New Worlds. and I thought it was absolutely charming. I thought it was really good.

And clearly, I wish not good enough for me to stick with, but that probably goes back to our how and when do we watch TV conversation. But I thought it was good because it just seemed really celebratory of a pure form of what Star Trek is, not a, hey, guess what, Star Trek can do this too. Right, right. As far as the second question about whether or not we are as into it, is it more about the fact that MCU and Star Wars are popular, or are we actually really big into it?

I think that if popularity was the only thing that governed what we talk about this show, we would do much different things, obviously. I mean, we skipped over several of the biggest shows. I mean, just taking the Netflix shows, for instance. Like, we never talked about Richardson. We never talked about The Watcher. We never talked about Dommer. You know, there are these Wednesday as a phenomenon.

Like, there are hugely popular shows that for one reason or another, whether it's like we just didn't like them or didn't see them or don't feel like we have anything to add to the conversation around them, we wind up kind of not hitting. I think that for me, Star Wars and MCU winds up being an interesting conversation topic, first of all, because they just generate interesting headlines about the business that we talk about,

for one thing. You were able to talk about them in like a funny way, but also in a, you know, kind of sober way about like what it means to Hollywood and what it means to making stories on screen right now. There's also, honestly, like, this connection to my younger self that I think matters,

You know, I think that there's a part of me that remembers flipping through comic books in a store when I was 13. There's definitely a part of me that remembers being mesmerized by Star Wars as a kid. And I think one of the things that we took into, because we have to remember when, by the time Andy and I were doing this podcast in 2012, Marvel was about four years into the MCU project, but it was certainly not like a juggernaut. It was like, oh, Iron Man really worked. There's some other stuff they're trying out. Avengers came out four months into... And Avengers was not universally praised or beloved.

I mean, I think everybody was like, it's talky and it's fun, but it's not... I think there's some issues with it, right? I think that it's been an interesting thing to kind of want more about. Like, you're always wanting more with these things, because the version of it that's in your head is always different than what winds up on screen. And, you know, Andy and I talked a lot about... We talked way more about our anticipation... for Hawkeye as a show

because of Matt Fractions's comics and because of what that character could be than we ever talked about the actual episodes of Hawkeye. Yeah. Which may be a sad indictment about us as podcasters and being able to fall through, but is more also about like, that was kind of like, the reason why we're so interested in this stuff

is because it does have such a sort of DNA level part of our interest in these, in film storytelling. Also, despite how much time we may spend personally curating our own sight and sound cinema lists, we fucking love to have a good time with pop culture when possible. It's really true. Like, I was trying to think about the three best times I've had in a movie theater. I mean, obviously, it's tough to begin any sentence that way, considering the last few years.

But I'm thinking of Top Gun the summer. I'm thinking of tar a few weeks ago, a movie we will one day talk about, but filled me with as much exhilaration and joy almost as Top Gun, very close. And Spider-Man movie last year. Like when it works, when these things are full of joy and people giving their all to something

and knowing what that something is and it works in its own logic and it is heroic in the best ways, like, it's good. That is a good thing. And I am still a fan of that feeling, and Marvel has done that multiple times over the last few years in ways that have dazzled us, not just professionally in terms of how they linked things together and made deals with people at the right times, although that's something we cover on the podcast, but they really nailed it creatively. And then the stumbling recently has been really, it has been disappointing, maybe inevitable, kind of interesting. So it is the kind of story that it touches all quadrants. But I do think it's worth saying that, you know, at the end of end game, rules. Like, that was awesome. It rules. Like, I am not, I am very snobby. I am very Lydia Tar on a lot of things. But I'm also her cousin Ava, Ava Tar. You know, just...

swimming in the blue waters of of Marvel. But the question isn't wrong because there are biases. As I've said many times, like I was just a Marvel get reader. So I have a lot of, it's hilarious to me

that the stuff gets on the screen or that it's a headline when Donald Glover is like, I'm going to play the hypno hustler, a disco villain from Amazing Spider-Man in the 70s. I'm like, okay, I don't know what I could promise

that I would do if that actually becomes a released film into the world, but sure. Yeah, how fun. Have fun with the library guys. I always wonder about the snake eating the tail aspect of this where it's like, if we're so disillusioned with something, why keep talking about it? You know, is it just constantly moaning about the state of Star Wars?

And I think that, honestly, it had nothing to do with us, but like the payoff of Andor and the payoff of like a really good Marvel thing is kind of worth it sometimes. Also, guys, it is different. Like, Marvel is a thing in a universe with a lot of different people playing in the sandbox. Star Wars, as we just said, is one also. Game of Thrones isn't yet. And so not to beat on a dead dragon, but like Game of Thrones so far in terms of the larger popular imagination,

not the book readers who are both happy and contentious and that's a whole separate thing at this point. It's two TV shows. One, one of the most successful of all time, and one that I thought wasn't very good in its first season. So it's hard to find the third rail of conversation about it because it isn't indicative of a larger project yet. It's like, oh, that's what it is now.

Right. So that isn't as sustaining, and we haven't found the same. So I feel like there's still more for us to talk about in a bad Marvel release at this moment than in something else that we, than a Game of Thrones thing that I'm not really digging. I almost ended the podcast with you saying endgame ruled, but instead we got a little bit of a shot at Game of Thrones in. So again, it's the yin and the yang. It's part of the pleasure of this podcast, right?

That's just what it's about. I mean, the pleasure of this podcast is. doing it with you. We've been doing it for more. Is this a decade coming up? We did a decade. That's right. So it's been 10 years. This is going to be next month. Well, this is this pod's dropping when January? No, it's December 29th. Okay. So in January next month, it's 11 years. Okay. 11 years. Thousands of hours. It honestly has been thousands of hours, but I would, I can't wait to do the next thousand with you, buddy. Thanks, man. Thank you to produce. Mr. Kaya, who steadfastly has cut out our ums and Oz, and while we Google things and then pretend

to know them off the top of our head and has been an amazing third, sometimes some would say, too silent party of this podcast for too long. The Kaya tapes released to Twitter on Matt Taibi's account any day now, I think. Is Kaya just, what if Kaya, what if you were just getting your PhD in like behavioral psychology and you were doing your thesis? on the cultural narcissism of men in the 40s. On Fleischmen's being in trouble? Yeah. Just two Fleischmen.

Well, one Fleischman and one half fleshman. Just get into trouble. Well, we're going to try and do this in person a little bit more in 2023. And Andy, I cannot wait until you have the experience of seeing whether or not Kaya's laughing at your jokes in person. Because she's been off cam for too long on the watch. Kaya laughed at my joke once. I think she knows. She gets a kick out of us.

Otherwise, you know, why do it, you know? Thank you to all of our listeners. Thank you to prestige television. Thank you to Andy Greenwald and Kai McMullen. We will be back with you in 2023. Happy New Year, Beretske's.